VICTORIA - For the political party chosen to form government in the May 14 election, one of the biggest challenges will be dealing with B.C.’s burgeoning “banana” movement.

I’m not talking big groceries.

BANANA is the acronym for “build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone,” a sentiment that would appear to be manifesting itself with increasing regularity in British Columbia.

One could get the impression that within a day or two of anyone proposing to build anything in this province, somebody will be assembling a coalition — environmentalists, community activists, First Nations, or all of the foregoing — to make sure it never, ever gets off the ground.

Increase the shipment of goods through the country’s major port on the West Coast?

Nor is this anti-development stance confined to the protectionist Lower Mainland.

The Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline is pretty much a dead letter in large measure because of widespread opposition in the region through which it would pass. Hard to think of a major mine that doesn’t face an uphill fight for approval.

Logging protests have been in relative abeyance over the past decade, probably because the coastal industry itself has been in stasis for much of the time.

The obstacles multiply once one turns to the challenge of coming up with the energy sources needed to power any major expansion in the resource or industrial sector.

Natural gas-fired generation is the most attractive option on the cost side for making electricity, owing to the North America-wide glut of supply.

B.C. has gobs of the stuff. The generating plants could be built close to where the power is needed, reducing the cost and loss associated with lengthy transmission lines. And in some jurisdictions, natural gas is regarded as a plausibly “green” option to, say, burning coal.

But along with all the potential megawatts, gas-fired plants would generate a lot of emissions and controversy in B.C.

BC Hydro’s proposal to locate a natural gas plant at Duke Point near Nanaimo ran into ferocious opposition a generation ago. Ditto when the Americans wanted to build one on their side of the border, near Abbotsford. BC Hydro’s giant Burrard thermal station remains idle for most of the time owing to concerns about its affect on air quality.

Nor is the proven option of renewable water power as acceptable as it once was in a province that has long enjoyed the benefits of relatively cheap power from massive hydroelectric dams.

Private run-of-the-river projects have been trashed by environmentalists, recreational fishers, and ideologues alike. As for the proposal to build a publicly owned hydroelectric dam at Site C on the Peace River, the coalition against it remains as determined to prevent flooding of agricultural land as it was 30 years ago when BC Hydro first touted the idea.

Wind farms, like run-of-the-river projects, offer an intermittent source of power that complements the storage capacity of hydroelectric dams. But when the Haida proposed a large-scale wind farm in the waters off their islands, it was denounced as a threat to sea life and migratory birds.

Even tidal power does not escape approbation in this obstructionist province. All three tidal generating sites under consideration at the south end of Vancouver Island are said to pose a threat to orca habitat and to other marine life.

New sources of power are critical to proceeding with the large-scale manufacture of liquefied natural gas for export, essential to shoring up provincial revenues and production against slumping markets in North America.

LNG terminals, being a combination of a compressor and a freezer, are huge users of power. They can be powered by consumption of natural gas itself — direct drive, as it is known, being the method for making LNG in rival jurisdictions around the world.

But that option is not the preferred one in a province with ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Then there’s the related controversy over the process of fracking, whereby liquid is injected into shale deposits deep in the earth to crack the rock and free up the natural gas that is trapped there.

Though both the governing B.C. Liberals and the opposition New Democrats have played down concerns about fracking, still the process is an emerging target for environmentalists in many quarters.

Not to say that the province should put all of its developmental eggs into one growth strategy, be it LNG, mining, forestry or anything else. Nor is there any avoiding environmental review or the court-mandated obligation to consult First Nations and accommodate their interests.

But neither can the next government of the province surrender to all of the groups of — to use another tongue-in-cheek term — “citizens against virtually everything” or CAVES, as they’ve also been called.

A no-growth economy is not an option in a province where the population is both growing and aging, the one demanding more homes, wider educational opportunities and new means of making a living; the other necessitating more access to increasingly expensive public health care and support services of every kind.

All of which argues that the party winning the election will need to break the news to British Columbians that our days as a “banana” province are over. We should choose wisely among growth opportunities. But we can’t say no to everything.

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Vaughn Palmer: Whoever wins the May 14 election must be prepared to fight the BANANA movement

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